threat-management.ch
PO Box 52
4012 Basel
Switzerland
Phone +4161-333-8287
www.threat-management.ch


 


Threat Assessment and Threat Management

 

Goal

Threat Management in workplace violence and threats offers a strategy that moves away from the prediction of danger to the identification and handling of risk.

  • risk management strategy
  • identifying available resources
  • supporting management and security staff
  • ongoing learning process

The management need to be trained in risk management, understanding and regognizing threats and how to react on them. It also includes training in the handling of any resulting crisis in the organization. Nearly half of all organizations have experienced a high-level crisis in the last few years due to threats and workplace violence.

 

Philosophy

The best approach to manage a crisis is to prevent the crisis.

Violence is perceived by the offender as a solution. The path to violent behavior is best regarded as a process where dramatic moments contribute to its esclation. Violence develops and changes over time, it is not static. Violence is not a charateristic trait of a person, rather it’s a behavior multifactorially influenced. Threatening behavior starts with fantasies embedded within a continuum where one possible outcome is a lethal action.

Organizations can learn from others that have experienced threats and crisis in the past. Threat assessment is more than focussing on overtly violent behavior as it starts with more subtle signs. Threat Assessment offers a practical and scientific approach based on given facts.

Threat Assessment is best carried out by interdisciplinary teams.

 

Targets

Threat Management does not only focus on the direct target but on associated and potential victims as well. Collateral effects may have a significant impact on persons not directly targeted; it may also have a considerable economic effect on the whole organization.

When workplace related problems arrise HR-professionals (human ressource) are at the frontline. threat-management.ch offers conselling and support:

  • Assessment of targeted violence
  • Profiling (potential) offenders
  • Risk Management

 

Rationale

In most cases violent outbursts are proceeded by verbal or written threats. There is always a path to violence, where interventions are possible. The most dangerous occupations are those in retail (especially convenience stores), manufactering, service, and hospitality sectors (Barton 2008).

 

Workplace Violence

Any form of threatening and/or violent behavior at the workplace or related to the workplace.

  • threats
  • harassement
  • violent behavior
  • lethal actions

The underlying factors are described in the research on inter-personal violence. In the vast majority of cases, the perpetrator is acting on a real or perceived grievance (Barton 2008).

Four primary types of workplace violence exist:

  • no personal connection with the workplace (e.g. robbery, etc.)
  • clients targeting the workplace (e.g. sabotage, etc.)
  • co-worker against the workplace (e.g. violence, etc.)
  • personal relationship (e.g. ex-partner, business partner, etc.)

The most commonly used weapon is a fist, not a gun. However, the most dangerous situations arise, when offenders use guns, especially handguns (they are easy to conceal).

Threats and violence are not static phenomenons.

Risk Asessment is not a single event, rather it is an ongoing process.

 

What do we know about the magnitude?

 

Interpersonal Violence

Interpersonal violence describes any form of violence committed in the context of human relationships:

  • written, verbal, physical threats
  • stalking, bullying, mobbing
  • physical harassement – attacks
  • sexual harassement and assaults

Interpersonal violence always takes place in a continuum. There may be a considerable overlap between the different forms described in the literature. In reality these forms are often indistinguishable from one another.

Violence is considered as a stepwise process:

 

Intervention

The first goal of the intervention is to stop the threat or the violent behavior, and to provide the essential security. The management has to react on three levels: duty to care, duty to warn, and the duty to act (Barton 2008). When in doubt, the organization has to react.

Four categories of threats exist (according to Mary Ellen O’Toole, FBI Profiler):

  1. A direct threat: the targeted persons/places are known
  2. An indirect threat: a violent act could occur, not it will occur
  3. A veiled threat: depending how the threat is received
  4. A conditional threat: if you not do this, then ...

In cooperation with involved persons a violence prevention plan is established.